August has arrived, quickly as usual. The garden is in full swing and plants are really starting to produce a lot of delicious goodies.

The garden itself is looking very similar to last year, full and overflowing. Though as you can see from the photos above, our skies are a little brighter and colourful this year. We have had less smoke (fingers crossed this continues), so we have been able to enjoy a lot of time in the yard.

Add to that the development of part of the bottom or the yard, and we are looking good. The pool has been great, and all the fabric down on the paths has really reduced the amount of weeds that need to be pulled.

I will be posting the July weight comparisons of what was produced in the gardens, I am just waiting for the garlic to finish curing and then I will be able to add those numbers to the post. So, in the meantime, I’ll share how the garden is doing.

The tomatoes are looking and doing great, though they are behind compared to 2023. Some of the plants are as tall as the ones this time last summer, but not all. Our sweetie pie cherry tomato plants, and our big beef tomato plants are very similar in size. The romas however, are much smaller.

I am wondering if this is due to our experiment in pruning the sweetie pies and the big beefs, but letting the roma plants go wild. You’ll see in the comparisons that our romas were actually the first to come off last year, and we had a large July harvest. This year, we didn’t actually get any harvested in July, and the sweeties were the ones that actually produced the most.

The sweeties are also a bit of an anomaly this year. They are supposed to be smaller tomatoes, like little cherries. Instead they are the size of a good size crab apple, much larger that what you would expect with a “cherry” tomato. They are the same seeds as last year, but the tomatoes are wildly different, which is interesting. I’m not complaining, they are still delicious and provide a great “smaller” tomato option, but they definitely aren’t as small as you would expect.

Beside the tomatoes are our cucumbers, peppers, butternut squash and zucchini. The cucumber and butternut squash are VERY happy. They continue to stretch in all directions, further than they ever had in the past. Go figure. I planted them based on the area that they had last year, and they have more than exceeded that space this year.

The cucumbers and squash were meant to grow around the pepper plants, but instead they have grown over because of how healthy and bushy the vines are. That being said, we are still managing some peppers, but we will see what they look like when they are ready to pick. I have somewhat given up on them, but spied a few peppers growing on the plants, so there may be jope yet.

The zucchini at the end of the bed doesn’t look great. The leaves are not large and leafy, but rather lean and open or jagged. Regardless of the look, I am getting some beautiful zucchini’s from the plant, so it must be happy enough. I tried increasing the water to see if it would improve the plant, but it seems to have had no effect on the leaves.

In the bottom bed, the broccoli & cauliflower are a major disappointment. They look to be very healthy plants, but little to nothing producing. I have managed to harvest a very small amount of broccoli, with some very small secondary heads producing, but overall, nothing really grew.

Nothing was happening with the cauliflower, so I had partially given up, only to find a mid-size head had grown. Unfortunately it is brown and already past it’s eating date, which is too bad. I kept checking and checking with nothing showing. Unfortunately, it looks like I may have given up too soon.

The ground cherries are interesting this year as well. The plants are starting to really take off, but not really in the same way they did last year. We do however, have a volunteer plant that must have grown from a cherry that made its way down toward the wall, which is growing up and out.

The two I planted in the spring and transplanted into the garden are trying, but just not looking quite the same. One is growing along the ground, more like a vine. I can lift up the plant and find the cherries underneath, but it doesn’t seem to be growing up. The other plant is finally starting to get more leaves and branches, but it looks like it is slowly lower to also lie down along the ground.

I don’t really care how they grow, as long as I get some decent harvests of the berries for some jam.

The leeks and celery are looking great. The leeks are really coming along, and everytime I look at them, I start dreaming about the potato leek soup we will be enjoying this fall and winter. I am definitely growing them again in the future.

The celery started off with very thin stalks again this year, so I began to wonder if it is worth growing it. Well, checking this morning, the stalks look like they are getting a bit better in size. I will leave them to see how they do for a bit longer and then cut a few to try out. If they don’t work out again this year, then I think I will skip them next year and use the space for something else.

The cabbage was a battle, but one worth fighting. The stupid cabbage moths and worms tried really hard to decimate the plants, but I wouldn’t let them. As a result, I have 4 beautiful green heads of cabbage and 3 decently sized red cabbage. I would have liked a better red cabbage head, but I’ll take what I can get.

I recently read that if you leave the cabbage plants and only take the head, that like other brassica’s, they will grow secondary smaller heads. So I decided to see if it would work, and low-and-behold, they absolutely are! They will end up being much smaller, but worth leaving the plant in to keep producing. I chop it all up anyways, so I don’t mind if they are all small. You can see if outside photos above, the secondary heads growing. The green cabbage have about 4-5 smaller heads going already, and the red cabbage has 3 just starting.

The beets are doing great! I have been enjoying the beet greens, along with a few smaller harvests of the beets. I am craving the summer beet salad, so I think I will be making that for dinner soon.

Kurts mom also told me about beet rolls, which are similar to cabbage rolls, using the been leaves. There seems to be a lot of recipes out there, but I will likely try one of the rice versions with onion, dill and bacon. You then drizzle a lemon dill sauce over the finished rolls. If they turn out, I’ll share the recipe.

The carrots are doing great. I have started harvesting them, with good sizes coming out. I made a carrot cake a few days ago with some carrots fresh from the garden. I also plan to make some carrot & brie soup this week for the winter months. I like to make the soup nice and fresh and then freeze it right away to try to capture as much of that fresh flavouring as possible.

Basil has also been enjoying some carrots, but luckily only the ones I give her and not fresh from the ground. I’m hoping that the location of them will deter her from jumping into the bed to help herself. I also make sure never to give her any fresh from the ground so that she can’t associate that spot with the carrots.

The strawberries and rhubarb are both very happy side by side. Though I do have to keep harvesting from just the one side of the rhubarb to ensure it doesn’t take over part of the strawberry patch.

The strawberries are going to need some trimming soon, with lots of runners shooting in all directions. We would like to keep the energy focussed on the plants and the berries rather than stretching to new places. The berries we have been getting are phenomenal! Large, red all the way through, juicy and jam-packed with flavour. I’m looking forward to making some jam, but we have also been munching on a lot of them fresh from the garden.

The potatoes and onions are doing their things. The onions are pretty much ready to be harvested, with their tops all flopped over. However, I would like them to get a touch bigger, so I am going to leave them just a bit longer to see if they plump up a bit more.

The ones that were planted in the fall came out of the ground a week ago. They were mostly decent sizes, though the red onions did end up a bit small.

The potatoes seem to be doing good, just getting a little thinned or flopped in areas. That is ok though, that is part of the process. We won’t really know how the new location is until we start harvesting in another month or so.

All of the flowers are also doing great. I love this time of year when the planters are full and overflowing. Though, not as much as they have in the past. I don’t know if they are growing up the canna lilies a bit, but the beds seem bushier this year. Either way, they look beautiful.

Plus, ALL the canna lilies are pretty much blooming now, including the ones that I planted in the spring. It is exciting seeing them finally sprout tall and shoot off flowers. I will be starting them every winter now.